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Is tap water ok for dogs in mexico?


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It seems most local people give their dogs tap water in Mexico, almost never purified water.

If you take your dog to a dog pension while you are on vacation, whether you like it or not it will almost certainly be given tap water, even if you instruct the pension to give purified water - because during the day the water is shared in community bowls.

What are the risks of our dogs drinking tap water?

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I can tell you for sure that Lucky Dog shelter and the Ladron Pet Hotel use bottled water for the dogs, as our water is nasty. When I live in a house where there is a purification system, I give my dogs tap water. When I live in a house that does not have a purification system, I give them bottled water. That said, Computer Guy is right. Most dogs will eat and drink anything when out on a walk, and I sincerely doubt it hurts them much. They might get diarrhea a little more often.

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our dogs have been drinking tap water, lake water toilet bowl water and never seemed to have any problems about it. Two of them are 14 and have never drank bottle water, the others are 5 and never saw bottle water. Get serious many humans do not even drink bottle water.

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our dogs have been drinking tap water, lake water toilet bowl water and never seemed to have any problems about it. Two of them are 14 and have never drank bottle water, the others are 5 and never saw bottle water. Get serious many humans do not even drink bottle water.

Thank you for pointing out how rediculous my experience was. I apologize for my ignorance.

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I've been in upper Ajijic since 1997, and yes sometimes in the earlier years my UV lights were totally out for several months. my two to three dogs and two to three cats and I drank therefrom (street water) and never got sick. Today I use UV lights that I check and reverse osmosis systems I more recently installed and I still don't get sick. My animals have access to this clean water, but would rather drink water in the plant saucers once the plants have been watered or water from the toilet bowl at least half of the time.

So far so good. No water health problems.

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Our experience is somewhat different from others. A year or more ago, one of our dogs became very sick and collapsed. She was only quite young. We took her to Dr. Ladron who did various tests; the results indicated a severe liver function impairment.

Between us and Dr. Ladron we finally figured that certain trace minerals in the water, such as arsenic, were possibly the cause. I should mention that it was only one of our four dogs that had this problem. Anyway, Dr.Ladron said we should only give them bottled water and the sick dog has been fine ever since. However, she also has a thyroid deficiency (discovered later) which may or may not have been part of the problem. Dr. Ladron prescribed pills for that.

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Thank you for pointing out how rediculous my experience was. I apologize for my ignorance.

I know that the water can taste different when bulbs burn out. And let's face it, some animals are just darn picky. We got a cat that only drinks running water (tap, sprinkler, shower), and out of a bucket in the back yard... with her paws. Wazzup widdat?

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Hola! Our 5 beasts drink pure Santa Cruz de la Soledad tap water. All good.

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Never drank bottled water until we came here to Mexico. Never had a doctor NOB tell us we were better off with bottled water. All our beasts drink tap water, even the cat that has to have it "running" for her to drink. If they don't like what we provide, it's time for them to look for a better home environment elsewhere. That's just the way we were brought up. YMMD and that is your choice. None of our beasts have earned "Tenure" yet, especially those lazy cats. :)

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I bet the 70 or more healthy dogs at the Ranch don't get bottled water. Nor do any of Anita's.

We have well water at the Ranch and certainly don't have the financial resources to give daily bottled water to 70+ dogs. I am sure a few pets with existing health issues need bottled water. The vase majority do fine on tap water. IMHO

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Canine Biology:
Dogs have very strong acid in their stomachs that destroy most bacteria. Our stomachs are weak and puny compared to dogs, because dog stomach acid content is 100X stronger than humans. This is why dogs love and thrive on tasty old leftovers that we find disgusting. This also means that dogs should do just fine drinking our tap water, unless the tap water has serious serious problems (not fit for even showering or washing).

Dogs can get sick from eating too many fecal coliforms - like copraphagic dogs that eat poo - but in general dogs do just fine with almost all tap water. If your dog gets sick from your tapwater, you may have serious enough problems to threaten you when taking a shower etc. If so, it would be good to do a thorough inspection of your home water system because it may have serious problems (like a dead bird in the tinaco or cistern or a broken pipe in the ground), and strongly consider bleaching your tinaco and home system.

Add 1/2 cup of normal bleach to a typical 1100L tinaco to get swimming pool levels of free chlorine, mix, and wait 15 minutes. Then go around the house and flush every toilet. Then run each faucet until you smell the chlorine. Free chlorine in your tinaco and plumbing thoroughly disinfect the system, unless you have a dead bird or some other big source of TOC (Total Organic Carbon) in your cistern or tinaco, or a broken pipe in the ground.

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our dogs have been drinking tap water, lake water toilet bowl water and never seemed to have any problems about it. Two of them are 14 and have never drank bottle water, the others are 5 and never saw bottle water. Get serious many humans do not even drink bottle water.

Exactly! In addition dogs and cats have far more efficient digestive systems than humans do. They don't need bottled water at all,period!

Our NOB acreage had a creek which in effect was a toilet for wildlife and livestock upstream and our dogs and cats drank from it with impunity.

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Chlorine and Chloramines are added by municipalities to tap water for sterilization. Both of these chemicals have been linked to cancer in our pets. So a blanket statement that all water is safe for dogs- or ponds where livestock drink and poop - are NOT safe for dogs! So common sense is advised in answer to the posters original question.

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